


You and me are playing for keeps

by Yuu_chi



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rough Sex, Slow Build, gives way to actual feelings, this is happy too i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 06:15:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuu_chi/pseuds/Yuu_chi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi finds the brat all but dying in the streets on a bitter day in May. If he'd had the brains, he would have let the story end there. </p><p>He doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You and me are playing for keeps

The first time they meet Levi’s trying to light a cigarette, leaning against the mouth of an empty alleyway that smells like piss as he cups hands and tries to get his lighter to spark.

“Spare a cigarette?” Someone asks next to him and Levi slides a glance to his left expecting to see a homeless bum. Instead he sees a young boy with eyes too green and a smile too wide and a blood coating to his tan skin and cheap clothes. His shoulder is clearly busted and he seems to be bleeding out.

“You look like you’re dying,” Levi deadpans as his lighter finally catches. He takes a deep drag of his cigarette and turns to raise an eyebrow at the kid. “You should probably go to the hospital or some shit.”

The brat makes an impatient noise. “Don’t like hospitals,” he says rather mater-of-fact. “And I asked for a smoke not a life lesson, Jesus.”

Levi snorts and takes one last puff before handing over his own. The kid takes it without complaint and sucks in a breath with practised ease as Levi fishes for another one. “You’re a fucking fool then. Wound like that? You’ll be dead inside a day or two if you don’t get it seen to.”

The kid shrugs with his good shoulder. “Doesn’t bother me,” he says nonchalantly, and Levi doesn’t believe him for a moment.

“Fucking Christ,” he says, annoyed, because the kid honestly plans to just stand there and let it bleed. He should go. He should leave well enough alone.

He sighs, and jams another cigarette between his teeth and turns to go, striding away from the alley. “Come on then, you little shit,” He calls back when the kid shows no sign of following. “I haven’t got all day.”

He blinks before scurrying after him. “Where are we going?”

Levi pauses for a moment, flicks his lighter and manages to catch a spark on the first try. “Fucking Winter Wonderland. My apartment, Jesus fuck, you got a shit up there instead of a brain, brat?”

The kid blinks again and something that feels like backwards déjà vu washes over him.

“My name’s not brat,” the brat says, “it’s Eren.”

.

Levi should call Hanji, probably; she’d know how to patch the kid up good and proper.

He doesn’t though, because he’s stubborn and he remembers what it’s like to be on the streets. He has dealt with his fair share of war wounds.

Eren lets out an ungodly shout when Levi resets his shoulder, and his neighbours thump on the wall in return.

“You could have warned me,” Eren bitches as he rolls the stiff joint; clean from Levi’s shower and sitting naked but for the towel wrapped around his waist because none of Levi’s own clothes would have fit him.

“Quit your fucking whining,” Levi grunts and stubs out his cigarette in the ash tray on the arm of the couch.  “It’s common sense that it would hurt.”

Eren pouts but doesn’t argue which is good, because Levi hadn’t planned on stitching up dumb as rocks brats when he got up this morning and he could be easily persuaded to stick the needle he’s dipping under Eren’s skin in his eye instead.

He swears to God that he wasn’t this stupid when he was on the streets.

The kid watches quietly while Levi stitches the gash on his back, slightly below the swelling of his shoulder that had just been put back into place. It’s nasty enough to need the stitches – a glancing blow from the business end of a knife Levi suspects, but he doesn’t really care enough to ask – but it’s not a mortal wound.

“Kids like you die young,” he mutters as he breaks the nylon with his teeth and he thinks he feels Eren laughing in the way his broad shoulders shake.

His skin feels warm and naked beneath Levi’s fingers.

“So, Doctor,” Eren jokes as Levi gets to his feet, “what’s the diagnosis?”

Levi narrows his eyes at him, but he’s too fucking tired to call him out on his bullshit. “I’ll do you a makeshift sling later, but I wouldn’t go using that arm for a week or two, so if you want to jerk off you’ll have to learn to do it with your left.”

He’s just being crude – his sense of humour is morbid at best – but Eren’s lips curl into a smile that’s almost dangerous around the edges. Something drops in Levi’s stomach.

“Mmh, not really the ambidextrous type though,” Eren says sweetly, and either that tone or the sound of a brat like him using big words is a serious turn on because Levi’s mouth goes a little dry.

“You’ll have to hope you’ve very flexible then,” he says back, and his voice scrapes rough.

Eren grins and Levi never noticed how sharp those teeth were.

“I’m _very_ flexible.”

It’s an invitation if ever Levi did hear one and he knows he shouldn’t – _Eren looks like he’s nineteen at best, and he's bruised halfway to fucking Sunday, and he’s just a fucking homeless brat that Levi took in like a dying animal because he’d felt a twinge of compassion seeing him leaning against that wall and –_

“Show me,” he says.

.

Eren’s skin tastes like sweat and cheap aftershave and the sounds he makes as he writhes beneath him is enough to nearly make Levi come on his own like an inexperienced highschool teenager again.

It’s obvious in the way that Eren licks a blazing trail up his stomach, bites hard enough to bruise at his collarbone and pulls away with the barest string of saliva connecting them, that he knows what he’s doing.

Levi appreciates that, because he’s impatient by nature and could care less how many people this kid’s fucked so long as keeps touching him like he’s a professional porn star.

When he flips them and takes Levi in his mouth from base to tip, he swears so loud that Eren chuckles – a ring of vibration around his cock – and sucks him off with sounds so filthy Levi just knows he’s doing it on purpose.

Eren spends a good few minutes with his mouth around him, tongue tracing along the thick vein of Levi’s erection and dipping to lick effortlessly along his weeping slit. Levi grinds his teeth together to contain anything that might be misconstrued as a moan because he’s nearly thirty-five and he’s not going to come undone by this brat’s talented tongue alone.

Eren glances up at him from where he’s pressing a kiss to the crown of Levi’s cock, face flushed red and lips swollen and dangerous, and Levi curses low and loud and drags him up to pin to the mattress.

They go at it hard and fast and Levi spills more lube on the sheets than he gets on Eren, biting at his neck and hoisting his legs up over his shoulder for a better angle, and Eren moves his hips in time to his thrusts, fingers digging like claws on the back of Levi’s neck and teeth clashing together because they lack the finesse to kiss and fuck at once.

Eren gasps when Levi hits his prostate dead centre and rakes his nails hard enough down his back to draw blood.

“You fucking little shit; stop that,” he pants against Eren’s skin as he drives his hips in powerful jerks. “That’s going to mark.”

Eren laughs – low and breathless and a little malicious – and twists his fingers into Levi’s hair, yanking his head down to trace the curve of his ear with a wet flick of his tongue. “ _Make me,_ ” he taunts and Levi shudders.

It’s Eren that comes first, back arching off the bed as he tightens around Levi’s dick, pupils blown wide so that Levi can only just make out the barest ring of blue-green-gold. He lets out something caught between a moan and a strangled shout, whole body shaking with the force of his orgasm as spurts of white splatter against his abdomen, sliding slick along the flexing muscles of his stomach.

“Shit,” Levi spits from beneath his teeth because the sight of this kid – this stupid fucking kid covered in bruises and too fucking gorgeous for somebody as damaged as him – panting and glazed beneath him hits a switch inside him.

He manages one more powerful push before he’s coming too and fucking hell, were they really so out of it they managed to get to lube but not a condom? Levi’s not usually that careless. He pulls out and collapses next to him with a groan.

He knows as soon as the afterglow fades his back is going to be killing him and the marks Eren left on his skin are going to sting like a fucking bitch.

“We’re getting tested tomorrow,” Levi says into the silence, and he doesn’t even know when he decided this would be a thing they were doing as a ‘we’. “Because I’d rather not find out I just fucked a kid who has AIDs.”

Eren rolls away from him and huffs. “Fuck you. I’m twenty-one,” he mutters. And Levi lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding.

“Good, because I was half worried you weren’t legal.”

“Didn’t seem to bother you two minutes ago,” Eren smirks and Levi scowls.

“Two minutes ago you were begging for me to fuck you so hard you couldn’t walk. Incidentally, how do you feel?”

Eren’s silent a moment.

“My arm hurts,” he decides. 

“Oops,” he says sardonically, because the sex really was very good and he can’t bring himself to care.

Eren punches him in the shoulder and the kid’s stronger than he looks.

Levi decides to call it even.

.

Levi buys Eren an actual sling because he is a mother fucking gentleman.

They get tested and declared clean and celebrate by having sex against the door of Levi’s apartment the minute they return from their errands – this time being careful of Eren’s shoulder – and Levi makes Eren help him scrub the whole thing down afterwards before he let the boy scamper off for a shower.

 _What am I doing_? Levi thinks as he sits back on his knees, wiping an arm across his brow. He’d been scrubbing viciously at the kitchen floor since he heard the shower rattle to life in the bathroom and he refuses to admit it’s a stress reaction.

It was all well and good to patch the kid up when he was too stupid to do it himself. Fucking him into the goddamn mattress probably wasn’t his smartest move, but he’d had riskier trysts in his time, but going out on errand runs and having victory sex against the door? Letting the kid swagger off to his shower like he’d done it a thousand times?

Levi should have kicked the kid to the curb the second the last stich was in his skin. What was it to him if one more brat died on the street? He was getting too old for this shit. He had a respectable job and bills and a lease with his name scrawled on it. Responsibilities and grown-up shit and plans.

A twenty-one year old kid wasn’t going to fuck it up.

“Oi,” Eren calls and Levi doesn’t exactly start, but it does catch him off guard. He turns to see Eren’s head sticking out of the bathroom door, hair dripping wet down the nape of his neck. “You got any clothes that’ll fit me? Pretty sure you ruined mine when you jumped me.”

Eren’s clothes were in the wash; the second time in less than three days.

“Do I look like I have clothes that would fit you?” Levi scoffs and gets to his feet, wiping his hands dry on a towel. Eren’s eyes trail down to the bucket and sprays at his feet.

“What were you doing?” He asks and if there’s anything Levi’s learnt, it’s that Eren has the attention span of a gnat.

“Cleaning,” he says shortly, before redirecting the conversation back. “You’re just going to have to deal with a towel until your clothes are done. If your naked ass touches anything I own, you’re cleaning it.”

“You like this naked ass,” Eren leers, “and not that I mind going around your apartment naked all the time, but you should seriously get me some clothes.”

Levi thinks about going out and buying Eren clothes; of holding up shirts and pants and figuring out if they’d fit him, if they’d suit his hair or his eyes. He thinks about the permanency that clothes shopping symbolises, the unspoken agreement Eren would be here long enough to need another set of clothes.

His mouth goes dry and his head hurt.

“No,” he growls. “I’m not fucking buying you clothes, Jesus; do I look like a fucking ATM to you? Buy your own shit.”

Eren shrugs, looking honestly unbothered. “Suit yourself,” he says and ducks back into the bathroom for all of a second before swanning back out with possibly the smallest towel Levi owned wrapped loosely around his hips and going to raid his refrigerator.

Levi’s dick twitches at the sight of Eren’s smooth back bent and legs spread as he peers at the bottom shelf, and Levi just fucking knows Eren’s doing it to wind him up.

He drops back to the ground and scrubs with renewed vigour.

“Warm in here, isn’t it?” Eren says nonchalantly with his back still to him and ease the towel on his waist so it’s barely hanging on.

 _Jesus_ , Levi thinks, throws down his cloth and presses the snickering kid against the bench.

He’s pretty sure he’s going to be the death of him.

.

Levi caves and gets Eren new clothes.

He’s not sure he can take him walking around the house naked anymore. His libido hasn’t been so active in years.

Eren laughs when Levi presses the plastic bags into his hands and Levi tries not to think about how he likes the way it sounds, curling warming and long off the end of his tongue.

“I expect you to pay me back,” he snaps. “Those weren’t fucking cheap.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eren says, waving his hand lazily. “Are sexual favours a valid currency?”

“That only works if I wasn’t getting them to start with,” Levi corrects smugly and watches with amusement as Eren gives an exaggerated wince. He turns his back and busies himself with something on the bench. “Looks like you’ll have to get a job.”

Eren goes silent for a long, drawn-out moment and Levi doesn’t turn around. “I could be a referee I suppose – you’ve probably been too busy being a little shit to notice, but I actually work.”

“You do?” Eren asks in surprise and Levi can hear the shuffle of plastic bags being set on the table. “You never leave the apartment.”

“Don’t you have to,” he grunts as he neatens a stack of already perfectly neat papers by the phone. “I’m a financial advisor. Work my own hours from home. What the fuck did you think I did, Eren? You think I just buy food and furniture with monopoly money?”

Eren gives a nervous chuckle and Levi actually turns to watch as he scrapes uneasy fingers through thick hair. “I actually thought you might have been in the mafia or something,” he admits and his cheeks are red enough for Levi to know he’s actually being fucking serious right now and goddamn, any normal person might have been immensely offended, but Levi’s just kind of flattered.

He still has it after ten years.

It’s on the tip of his tongue to say _not anymore_ just to watch Eren squirm, but it’s too close to home to feel funny. Instead, he tilts an eyebrow and asks: “Why the fuck did that even occur to you?”

Eren’s back aches like an angry cat and his tone goes defensive. “What else was I meant to think? I mean, you don’t ask any questions and you just took me in like it was the most normal thing in the world! Jesus Christ, Levi – normal people don’t take in dying strangers from the street. You didn’t even seem remotely worried I’d rob you blind while you slept and then the – with the – I mean…” He reddens and splutters incoherently and Levi watches with a kind of detached amusement, because he’s seen this kid spread himself open and fuck down on Levi’s cock, but he can’t talk about sex without getting flustered like a twelve year old. “Also, you have more scars than me, and I got _shanked_ last week.”

Something about Eren’s speech rubs Levi the wrong way.

He turns away abruptly and slams open a cupboard. “Get a job or get back on the streets,” he says coldly. “You’re not my kept boy, Eren. If you want to leave, fine. Leave. I honestly couldn’t care. But if you want to stay? Then earn your goddamn keep.”

He expects Eren to throw a tantrum, to storm out and say he’d rather go back to being homeless. Some part of Levi thinks that’s probably what he should _want_ – he doesn’t know what he’s doing, why he’s offering for Eren a place to stay.

He swallows and slams the cupboard shut again because he’s not even certain why he’d opened it to begin with.

“Okay,” Eren says into the silence and Levi’s heart thuds loudly.

“Okay, what?” He asks venomously, and he goes to turn around, he really does, but suddenly Eren’s against his back, arm curling around his waist and chin nestling in the crook of Levi’s shoulder – close and a little awkward because Eren’s right arm is still hoisted high by a sling.

He panics – but before he can say or do anything, he feels the soft shuffle of Eren’s skin against his own as he speaks.

“I’ll get a job. I’ll go out and hand out résumé’s and do all that shit. Fuck, I’ll even _write_ the damn thing. And I’ll stay here. With you. I mean, if you’re sure.”

Just like that, Levi’s panic drains out of him. The effect Eren has on him in intense and disconcerting. “I wouldn’t having fucking offered if I wasn’t,” he growls, even though, no, he wasn’t actually all that sure because God help him, he had no fucking clue what he was doing anymore, but going by the way he didn’t push Eren off when his arm curled low and warm around his waist, he was probably boned.

.

Levi pulls some strings and by the end of the month Eren has a job at a packing shed.

It’s not much – moving heavy shit around and putting it in boxes – but Eren takes to it like a natural. Levi knows he’s got a surprising amount of muscle for someone who looks so frail and wiry, but to see it in action, the steady flex of his stomach as he bends and twists, is another thing entirely.

He’s not too proud to admit that it’s something of a serious turn-on and he has no fucking clue how Eren has enough stamina to fuck Levi nearly every other day and then go to work and lift things that are easily half his weight but he’s goddamn glad for it.

They don’t talk about what it means – that Eren has fulfilled the only condition Levi put in place to make what they have for keeps – but he’d be stupid to say he can’t feel the way it’s changed them.

He wakes up one morning to Eren snoring lightly to his left, arms folded under the stack of pillows he has an annoying habit of stealing in his sleep and face innocent and crumpled in the way it gets when he’s too exhausted to even frown through his dreams.

Eren’s back is broad and bare and the steady dip of his spine that disappears under the covers isn’t marked by bruises anymore the way it had been when Levi had picked him up like the stray he was, but hickies and nicks from Levi’s teeth.

His fingers pass over the barest bump on his shoulder – the light twist of scar tissue – and it’s all that remains of Levi’s field stitches.

He can’t even remember how long it’s been now.

This is dangerous. He knows this is dangerous. Eren is a mess and Levi isn’t much better. They’ve gotten good at pretending that they’re not, that they’re okay, but the truth is sometimes Eren leaves the apartment for hours on end and Levi has no clue where he goes and sometimes Levi reaches for a gun that he hasn’t carried in nearly ten years and nothing is going to change that.

They won’t change that. They can’t fix each other.

Eren lets out a particularly loud snort and rolls over in bed, Levi’s fingers gusting along his warm skin as he moves.

Eren murmurs something, and Levi is pretty sure he catches his name in there.

His heart doesn’t skip a bit and his breath doesn’t catch, but Levi thinks this might be the closest his ever been to the thing called love.

.

Levi goes out for work one day – he works from home mostly, but meetings here and there are an unavoidable part of his job – and when he comes home it’s to an empty apartment.

He doesn’t think much of it to begin with as he loosens his tie with quick fingers and drapes it with ease over the back of the living room couch, because Eren is his own person and sometimes he goes out and does shit without telling Levi about it and that suits them fine.

He starts on dinner – casserole – and uses the silence to catch up on some reports he’s behind on, the only noise the steady tapping of his keyboard and the low boil of the stove. He’s a little pissed that the quiet isn’t nearly as comforting as it was before Eren tumbled head-first into his life and he’s irritated that he can’t shake the discomfort curling like smoke in his stomach, but he soldiers on.

By the time his work is done and dinner is ready Eren still hasn’t returned.

Levi refuses to admit he feels sick, refuses to admit he’s worried – Eren isn’t the type of person to skip meals – and he refuses to admit the way his pulse races fast and jumpy beneath his skin means anything at all.

The food tastes like charcoal on his tongue, fire and dust, but he eats it all anyway and shoves Eren’s serve in the fridge.

He honestly doesn’t recall what he does after that, but when he glances at the clock and sees that it’s nearly midnight he decides to just call it a night.

The bedroom is large and empty and annoyingly cold as Levi shucks out of his work pants and good shirt, folding them with care on the chair in the corner, and when he shoulders his way under the blankets he feels like there’s too much space and not enough heat.

Eren has never been gone this late before.

All the clocks in the house are digital, so there’s no ticking to mark the passage of time as it eases slowly on forward, but Levi imagines he hears it all the same. It passes midnight, passes one then two and three, and still there’s no sound of a key turning in lock.

Levi’s not a moron, he’s a fucking genius – he knows what this means.

They never made any promises. Levi never asked anything of Eren and Eren did the same. He’d picked up an injured mutt too stupid and unreliable to survive on its own and looked after it until it could heal.

 _So that’s it then_ , Levi thinks hazily as he stares up on the ceiling. Three months of trading kisses and fucking each other against any surface that would hold their weight and not even a goodbye note on the table.

It doesn’t really hurt, exactly, because Levi is in his mid-thirties now and he’s been through it all before, but the emptiness he feels when he rolls over to Eren’s side of the bed is probably more than just the empty space around him.

Levi doesn’t know exactly when he drifted off into sleep, but when he awakens it’s to the feeling of fingers in his hair.

His first response would be to jolt upright and break somebody’s wrist, but the soft caresses feel familiar in a way that makes his head hurt and when he musters the energy to open his eyes, it’s to see Eren lying next to him, still fully dressed on the covers.

(Levi will rip into him about that later; they’ve already had the ‘no shoes on the bed’ conversation.)

It’s dark in the room but there’s enough moonlight spilling in from the ajar curtains to see the steady angles of Eren’s face, the brilliant turquoise of his eyes.

For a second, Levi disgustedly thinks he’s still dreaming.

Seeing Levi’s eyes open, Eren’s lips quirk. “Hey,” he breathes as his fingers move through Levi’s hair.

It’s on the tip of Levi’s tongue to say _thought you weren’t coming back_ but when he looks closer he can see the tired shadows under Eren’s eyes and a scrape red and fresh on his chin.

Before he even thinks about it he’s lifted his fingers from under the covers to touch it, tracing light along the way it’s bruising so quick even though it hadn’t been there this morning.

“You’re late,” he says, and it comes out soft and quiet just like Eren’s ‘ _hey’_ had.

Eren smiles again and shifts slightly, one hand coming up to catch Levi’s as it drew shapeless figures on Eren’s face, threading their fingers together and resting their interlocked hands on the pillow beneath his head.

“Sorry, I just … I had some stuff to take care of.”

Levi could push – he knows he could – and Eren would probably tell him.

“Get your shoes off the covers before I castrate you,” he says instead.

Eren smiles at him again, soft and reverent and Levi doesn’t know how he ever thought Eren would go, not when he looks at him like that, like Levi makes the fucking sun shine and hung the moon and stars.

He strips quietly and Levi knows he should feel a bit silly about the way they’re whispering like schoolchildren, but when Eren’s shirt comes off in an erotic flex of his spine, he finds it hard to care.

There are marks on Eren’s body that weren’t there when he left – bruises blooming new and purple across his shoulder blades – and Levi’s heart stutters a little in his chest because he’s been where Eren’s standing before and he could probably hazard a guess at what Eren was doing out until four in the morning, but if there’s a time to talk about it, it’s not now.

Eren crawls under the covers and his fingers slip under the hem of Levi’s shirt, easing it up and over his head with practised movements, lips pressing soft and slow against his own in a way that is almost unfamiliar because they don’t do it like this – they go hard and fast – and Levi shivers as Eren’s fingers tangle in his hair and ease his head back to lick up the ladder of his throat.

His fingers tighten on Eren’s naked skin as Eren lets him roll them so Levi’s on top, staring down at him against the white spread of the blankets, and Levi has the crazy thought that he never wants to let this go.

He’s old and tired and before Eren came along life had been about existing and just that – surviving with as little casualties as possible along the way. It had never occurred to him that he was allowed to have anything more – that people like him could have people like Eren.

Eren’s fingers skid over his shoulders to wrap around the base of his neck and ease him down for a kiss, tender and heartbreaking and Levi wants so badly to turn this around into mindless fucking like the first time he had Eren against the sheets, because he doesn’t know if he can handle this.

“Hey, hey,” Eren breathes against his lips and Levi realizes he’s shaking. “It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere.”

Levi should be embarrassed that he’s so easy to see through, but his breath is coming in quick shudders completely unrelated to the way he’s rapidly hardening against the press of Eren’s warm body and it takes everything he has to drop his face into the crook of Eren’s neck and _breathe_.

They go slow and tender – drawing minutes into moments – and Levi memorizes every sound Eren makes, the little gasps and the flutter of his eyelashes against his cheeks as he moves against him, breathing Levi’s name into his skin like a mantra.

Levi has done a lot of filthy things with a lot of different people, but with Eren’s eyes blown wide staring up at him, it’s the most vulnerable he’s ever been.

“ _Levi_ ,” Eren groans as he shakes beneath him.

And Levi comes undone.

.

Since they’d given up all pretence of pretending that Eren wasn’t actually living with him, it was usually Eren that did the cooking. Levi was competent enough, but his food tended to be for the mere purpose of consumption. Eren’s food actually had a taste pallet that ranged beyond ‘acceptable’ and ‘not’.

“My mom taught me,” Eren said one day as he pushed some vegetable around a skillet. “I’m not as good as her, but I do alright.”

Because of this, it was usually Eren that did the food shopping too. Levi had been more than willing to relinquish that chore after the first time he saw what Eren thought was a comprehensible list.

(what the fuck even was Bok Choy?)

The fact that Eren had been working a serious amount of overtime recently though had thrown a bit of a wrench in that plan and because Levi didn’t have the heart to tell him to turn down his good for nothing boss when Eren looked so thrilled at the prospect of being reliable, Levi was currently standing in the fresh food section with a scrap of paper in one hand and a basket in the other.

It was so disgustingly domestic that he honestly thought he might be sick.

He was staring at a selection of leeks contemplating the difference between what their tag called them and what Eren had written in his shitty chicken-scratch handwriting when he felt a tap on his elbow.

“Excuse me, uh, are you Levi?”

The voice is unfamiliar and when Levi turns to look, so is the face.

“Who the fuck are you?” He asks instead of answering, because he was fairly sure it was a common courtesy not to bother somebody while they were in the middle of an existential crises over goddamn leeks.

The stranger looks sheepish but determined and there was a glint in his eyes that kind of reminds Levi of Eren. “I’m sorry, I know this is probably a bad time, but I just saw you and –.”

“And what?” Levi interrupts. “You just thought you’d come over and paw at me like a dog? Fuck, I have no clue where your hands have been. Don’t go touching strangers so casually.” He pauses to consider the brat who was looking more and more nervous as he went on. “And who the hell are you anyway?”

The stranger latches onto the question like he’d been waiting all his life to hear it. “My name’s Armin,” he says hurriedly and the glint in his eyes was back, “and I’m a friend of Eren’s.”

Levi’s stomach drops.

Well fuck.

.

The thing is, Eren had told Levi fuck all about his life and Levi hadn’t made him.

He’d found Eren dying on a street corner with blood on his skin and shit on his clothes and hadn’t asked. Levi had been young and stupid and reckless once; he’d lived through the streets and all the shit that had come with it.

If Eren wanted to talk they’d talk, but until then they’d keep up the weird charade that what they had was anything in the realm of normal.

Sitting in the kitchen staring at a cup of coffee while voices drift out from the living room, Levi wonders if he’s made the right choice after all. The look on Eren’s face when he’d come home to find Armin sitting on the couch – awe and fear and terror – should make him curious, but Levi has never wanted to know anything less in his entire life.

His coffee has gone cold in his hands and he knows that he must look like a right shithead sitting stiff at the table for the last hour without moving.

Levi has no clue what Eren’s life had been like before that night in the alley, and, to be frank, he hadn’t given it much though. Armin was the reminder that Eren didn’t just come into existence that piss cold day in May when Levi had looked up from his cigarette, that Eren had over twenty years of life that didn’t include Levi behind him, and in those twenty-odd years were a wealth of people Levi would never know about.

He remembers the first time they slept together and knowing without a doubt that Eren had enough experience behind him to make a porn star cringe. His fingers tighten around his mug and he tries to go back to the time where that didn’t matter to him.

There’s the sound of shifting furniture and more hushed voices before the sound of the door clicking closed follow it.

Levi holds his breath until he hears the soft creak of the hallway floorboards that mean it was only Armin leaving and that Eren was still _there_.

He hears the rattle of Eren approaching the kitchen and gets to his feet in a hurry to dump the contents of his mug down the sink, trying to fix his expression into something that resembles vague interest as opposed to whatever the flying fuck is on his face now.

Eren pauses in the doorway to the kitchen – Levi’s back is turned, but he knows it in the way Eren’s treads fall silent – and he focuses more attention than even he really needs to on rinsing his coffee mug.

“Good talk?” He asks nonchalantly.

“Levi,” Eren says and something in his voice makes Levi’s hands spasm so that he has to set the mug aside on the washboard to avoid dropping it. “Levi can you … can you look at me for a second? I don’t want to have this conversation with your back.”

“What conversation?” He replies and it’s only thirty years of acting like he doesn’t give a shit that keeps the weariness from his voice, the resignation off his face. He spins around at the sink, leaning heavily against the bench to raise an eyebrow at Eren who’s still lingering in the door.

Eren looks like he’s got too much energy and not enough room in his body to contain it all. Levi’s never quite seem him like this before. Eren is a restless person by nature, but the way he’s practically vibrating where he stands like he can’t figure out what to do with all the pent up momentum in him is baffling.

He takes in a deep breath. “That was Armin.”

“I know his name,” Levi says.

“Armin was … he’s been looking for me, apparently.”

“Apparently,” Levi repeats dryly.

Something in Eren’s expression snaps and he’s in front of Levi like a hurricane, fingers tight around Levi’s forearms and it’s only the sheer shock of it all that keeps him from pushing Eren away and breaking his spine on reflex. “Would you stop looking like you expect me to walk out the door any second?” Eren growls, and his fingers squeeze tight enough to hurt. “I’m just … I’m not going anywhere. I don’t know why you can’t seem to understand that. I just – I want to talk to you seriously about something and you look like you’re preparing for me to punch you.”

Levi wants to wince because he’s acting like a spoilt child – a brat – and having Eren call him out on it damages his pride in ways he’s not sure he’ll ever fully recover from. “You don’t have to stay here for my sake, Eren. I’m a grown man. You should do what you want with your life.”

Eren looks at him like he’s crazy. “I _am_ doing what I want with my life. Crap, Levi, we were fine this morning, what the fuck has changed?” Something must flash across Levi’s face or else he has a tell nobody’s ever informed him of because the second the words come out of Eren’s mouth, recognition dawns in his eyes. “This is about Armin? You thought I was going to leave when he showed up?”

Levi finally tears his arm free from Eren’s iron grip. “I’m not sure what I thought,” he admits bitingly

“But you still brought him back here to meet me? You thought I might leave but you still –.”

“I heard what you said the first time. _Fuck_. I don’t know what you think of me Eren, but I wasn’t going to guilt you into staying here. If you have somewhere you’d rather be, and people you’d rather be with I’m –.”

“There’s not.”

Eren’s words are blurted and without thought and so rushed together it Levi a moment to decipher what he’s saying. “There’s … There are reasons I left home, and yeah, I’ve missed Armin like crazy but I’m not going back. That’s all in the past now. This – being here with you – this is where I belong now. So, no. There’s nowhere I’d rather be nor people I’d rather be with.”

Levi closes his eyes and the next instance he feels Eren’s fingers on his wrist, gentle this time and soft as they trace down the delicate bird-like bones and across his palms until their fingers are laced together. “You need to trust me, okay? I’m not just trying to repay my debt or hanging around until something better comes up like you seem to think I am; I’m here for keeps.”

“For keeps, huh?” Levi repeats once he’s sure he's got his voice under control. He gives Eren’s hand a squeeze. “What makes you think I want you here for keeps?”

The transition from calm to flustered is immediate and Levi opens his eyes to watch Eren blush from ear to ear and stammer on about _you know what I mean_ and _god, you’re such an asshole, I have no clue what I see in you_.

“Oi, Eren,” he sighs when Eren shows no sign of winding down his spiel. He slips his fingers loose and reaches up to cup Eren’s face.

“Shut up and kiss me?” Eren supplies for Levi.

“Sounds about right,” Levi agrees and Eren leans forward with a grin.

.

They’re lying in bed about a week after the Armin thing when Eren finally tells him.

“My sister’s getting married.”

Levi looks up from his book, glasses tight on the bridge of his nose. Eren’s lying on his stomach and tracing lazy lines on Levi’s bare shoulders, chin propped up on a palm and looking for all the world like he’d never spoken at all.

Closing his book, Levi sets it aside on the nightstand and turns to give Eren his full attention.

“I haven’t spoken to her in years, but Armin thought I’d want to know. He’s been keeping an eye out for any kind of idea where I’d be. He heard a few rumours going around.” Eren looks up at Levi and smiles the kind of warm and open smile that Levi thinks he could get used to seeing more often. “That’s how he found out I was shacking up with you. Your neighbours are a bunch of gossips.”

“They’re your neighbours too,” Levi says for no other reason than it’s the truth and the grin Eren gives him in return is blinding.

“Yeah, I guess they are. I can’t remember the last time I had neighbours.” He goes silent for a second, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth and Levi knows exactly what he’s too afraid to say.

“You want to get back in contact with your sister, don’t you?”

Eren’s eyes flutter closed and his fingers still against Levi’s shoulder. “Yes. No. I don’t know. It’s … It’s been so long and I did a lot of stupid things – and I mean a _lot_ and I just…”

“ _Eren_.”

His eyes open again just as Levi rolls them so Eren’s pressed against the sheets and Levi’s arms are resting either side of his head, face hovering a bare inch above his.

“Whatever stupid shit you’ve done – and I have no problem believe you’ve done a lot of stupid shit – I’m sure your sister would be glad to hear from you.” He pauses, hesitates, thinking on his words for a second before deciding to continue. “I have no siblings and I’ve never met your sister, but I don’t think Armin spent all that time looking for you for a quick catch up session.”

“I’d like you to,” Eren blurts and flushes as soon as the words are out because one of his biggest flaws – even though Levi finds it stupidly endearing – is his lack of brain-to-mouth filter.

“Like me to what?”

“Meet my sister. One day. I mean, if you want. It’s not like – I mean, if things happen –.”

“ _Eren_.”

He’s dangerously close to burying his face in his hands, Levi can tell, and he’s never quite gotten how one moment Eren can be sex and seduction personified and the next revert to acting like a virgin teenager.

Levi smooths a hand down Eren’s cheek and tilts his face so he can snatch a kiss. “I’d love to meet your sister.” He’s feeling dangerously sentimental by this point and he’s not sure he likes it so he tacks on an obligatory: “So long as she’s not half the shit for brains you are, Jesus. Don’t think I could handle another you.”

Eren snorts out a laugh and the tension drains from him like a deflating balloon. “God, you’re such an asshole. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“You,” Levi affirms with as much boredom as he can work into the one word. “Every single day.”

“Yeah,” Eren says, smiling against his lips as he rubs his cold toes along Levi’s calves like he thought he was fucking funny. “And I’ll keep saying it every single day.”

Levi will never admit it, but right now that sounds like heaven.

.

(Levi goes out to get some coffee the next morning and when he comes home he can hear Eren talking softly on the phone.

He sets his coffee aside and goes to hunker down in the office to give Eren his privacy and when he comes out hours later, the calendar in the kitchen has a date scribbled on it in flashy red marker.

 _Mikasa and Jean wedding_ it reads, and Levi does Eren the favour of pretending he doesn’t notice.)

.

It’s by complete accident that Levi finds out that Eren’s in trouble at all.

He’s waiting in the foyer of a fancy privately owned building – a major client of his, even though the director pisses him the fuck off – and flicking idly through an out of date homecare magazine in the foyer when he hears the steady thump of footsteps approaching.

When he glances up it’s to see Erwin sitting down in the couch next to him like it’d been five days instead of five years since he’d last seen him.

“You look good,” Erwin says, and with anybody else it would be a mindless quip, but with Erwin it’s just an honest appraisal.

Levi sets his magazine aside. “Yes, well, straight and narrow and all that bull. Does wonders for a person when they don’t have to take a shit in convenience store bathrooms.”

Erwin actually laughs at that, his face almost fond. “Haven’t lost your bizarre sense of humour either, I see.”

Levi could play the nostalgia game – the: _oh you remember when_ thing – but he’s tired and dreading the meeting he’s about to walk into and just generally in a foul mood. “What are you doing here?” He asks and it comes out vaguely accusing although that’s not how he really intended it.

Erwin looks at him in amusement, tapping a finger along the lapel of his expensive suit that looks like it costs more than Levi’s annual income. “You’re not the only person who’s decided to go for clean living. I work here, actually.”

Levi frowns and it’s not surprisingly, exactly, that he didn’t know that – he deals with numbers and junk, not shit like staff – but he’s a little disappointed he hadn’t figured it out earlier.

“Don’t look like that,” Erwin chides, and he’s not exactly smirking because Erwin Smith does not smirk, but he’s looking like he finds Levi turmoil amusing in that sneaky underhanded way that Levi always admired him for. “It’s not like I’m keeping tabs on you either.”

Levi snorts because that is the biggest bullshit he’s ever heard. Erwin Smith probably keeps tabs on his mailman.

Erwin chuckles and for a moment it feels like old times except for the fact Levi knows it’s not.

“What do you want?” He asks, reaching back over for his magazine because if Erwin doesn’t have something he actually needs, Levi’s not feeling generous enough to entertain him. “If you want to play at nostalgia, go find someone else. I’m not interested.”

For a second Levi thinks Erwin is going to attempt another joke, but if there was one thing Erwin was always good at, it was reading Levi’s moods.

“I heard you took in a stray by the name of Eren Jaeger recently,” he says – so casual it’s almost offhanded – and Levi’s heart freezes. “Not that it’s any of my business, but I just thought you might like to pass a warning along to him. You do get ever so cranky when your playthings get damaged.”

“He’s not a plaything,” Levi snaps before he can check those words in at his brain. His grip on the magazine in his hand is too tight and even though he knows he must outwardly look calm and composed, his insides are trembling in a slow boil of tension.

Erwin examines him with a curious flick of his gaze. “No,” he muses as he rubs a finger along his chin. “To have you looking like that I suppose he’s not.” Levi grits his teeth to refrain from comment and waits for Erwin to continue. “Well, I suppose in that case it’s probably even more urgent to pass along my warning. Eren made a lot of people very mad recently – I don’t know the details, I’m too out of the loop to catch anything but the tail-end of the grapevine these days – and it seems they’re out for him.”

“Out for him?” Levi repeats even though he doesn’t really need Erwin to clarify.

Erwin slides him a sideways glance before getting to his feet in a creak of expensive leather sofa. “Well,” he says as he sets his hands on his hips and makes a show out of cracking his back, “it’s probably nothing to worry about. Just keep an eye on him. Kids these days don’t know how to put a leash on their temper.”

Levi takes in a deep and quiet breath. “Thank you for the warning,” He says as diplomatically as he can manage because Erwin is still an old friend and he did him a massive favour. Levi’s not stupid enough to think this favour came without a price tag attached, but he’s not greatly concerned about that right now.

Erwin doesn’t say goodbye as he turns to leave, but that’s the way their relationship has always worked.

Levi checks his watch. His meeting is in less than ten minutes.

He drops the magazine again, slings his coat up over his arm and leaves the building.

.

Predictably Eren takes the news that Levi doesn’t want him to leave the apartment for a while with his typical lack of decorum and tact.

“It’s nothing that concerns you,” he snaps as he hurls his jacket across the room and Levi know that he doesn’t actually mean it, that Eren gets mean when he gets mad, but it takes everything he has not to snap right back at him. “I can take care of myself.”

Levi tells himself to breathe deeply and remember that Eren is nearly fifteen years younger than him, barely out of his teens. He’s a brat and stubborn as a mule and doesn’t understand a thing about real life.

“I’ve never asked you to stay,” Levi says as calmly as he can and the effect is instantaneous. Eren freezes where he stands and the look on his face is something that Levi has never seen before and can’t even begin to name. “I’ve never asked you stay because I know you won’t make promises you can’t keep. I’ve never asked why you left home or what you’ve been doing for the years since you did. I’ve never asked anything of you, Eren, but now I’m asking you this. Don’t leave the apartment – not until I can get this whole thing sorted out. I’ve still got connections, I can fix this. Just – just _please_.”

Levi never says please – not to anyone, not even to Eren.

The truth is Levi is dangerously close to begging right now.

Eren really _looks_ at him for probably the first time since Levi had come back from his skipped meeting and told Eren that no, he couldn’t go out and get something to eat right now because he wouldn’t be going out _period_ for a while.

Levi has no clue what Eren sees in his expression, but he wagers he probably looks like a wreck.

He takes in a shuddering breath and places a hand over his face because he really doesn’t want to be doing this right now. All he wants it to rewind to before Erwin had casually mentioned Eren all but had a hit on him and Levi was pretending he knew nothing about what Eren did before Levi had come into the picture.

There’s the sound of footsteps on the lounge carpet and Eren’s suddenly there, prying Levi’s hand off his face and wrapping steady arms around his shoulders to pull him in close.

Levi is so suddenly reminded of the first time Eren touched him like this – with affection – standing in the kitchen and declaring Eren could stay so long as he got his shit sorted.

“Okay,” Eren says as Levi stands stiff but unresisting in his arms because dealing with this kind of relationship is still a novelty. “Okay, I’ll stay.”

 _Liar_ , Levi thinks as he raises unsure hands to clutch tight at the fabric pulling lose at Eren’s back, burying his face in his chest. _You are such a goddamn liar_.

.

Everything goes okay for about a week.

Eren stays in the apartment and doesn’t leave unless Levi’s with him and in the meantime Levi calls in every single favour people in the dark and dirty grimes of his past owe him.

It’s not fun going back to that place Levi had cut out of himself ten years ago when he made the choice to live instead of just exist, but it’s not meant to be. He does it anyway because he’s past pretending he wouldn’t do anything for Eren at this point.

He asks and threatens and even pulls a knife once or twice trying to get across the message that Eren was untouchable now and no matter who he’d pissed off during his frankly shitty attempt to extradite himself from his old excuse for a life, they’d back the fuck off or shit would hit the fan.

Eren doesn’t ask what Levi does or who Levi speaks to or even how Levi knows half the people he does, only has a bath ready when he returns and makes an event out of cooking Levi’s favourite meals every night.

It’s good for a while – Levi’s getting shit sorted – but as days stretch on Eren becomes antsier and antsier and Levi doesn’t know what he can possibly do about it.

Eren has a weird thing about his freedom, about not living like he was in a cage. It was part of the reason Levi had never asked anything of him before, had never tried to make him promise he wouldn’t leave. When Eren’s bound down to a place with rope and chain he rears back like a wild animal and Levi just _knows_ it’s breaking every rule he has staying hunkered down and hidden away like this.

When Levi comes home one day to find the apartment empty and a note on the table, he’s not even surprised, not even disappointed.

 _Gone for a walk_ is all it says, but considering Eren was meant to be on lockdown it might as well read _decided to pilgrimage to the Himalayas._

Levi takes in a deep breath and balls the note in his fist – feeling the crunch of paper beneath his angry fingers – and throws it with all the force he can muster at the wall.

He gets his coat and leaves.

.

Levi’s feet take him in the direction he knows he’ll find Eren without even thinking about it.

They’re not the couple that goes for romantic evening strolls – they’re barely a couple at all – but sometimes Eren manages to talk him into taking a walk with him when Eren’s restless and Levi’s stressed and they don’t have the energy to work it off in other ways.

(Levi wonders when sex between them became optional; when it stopped being pushing each other against walls all the time and started become a natural give-and-take.)

It’s dark and it’s cold and Levi’s so worried that he’s close to making himself physically sick. There’s a feeling in his gut that he can’t name – words were never his strong point – but comes close to being dread.

He’s probably overreacting; Eren’s a lot of things – a useless, filthy brat – but he can take care of himself.

The thought doesn’t stop his feet from quickening nor ease the tension like a tightrope in his gut.

He bypasses the park and the streets leading off from it, hands tight in his pockets and breath a controlled whistle between his lips because the only way Levi knows how to deal with anything is to find a way to be in control of it.

It was a pity that tactic had never worked on Eren.

He can’t find Eren. He can’t find anybody walking these lonely streets at this lonely hour and almost before he realises it, he’s turned around and he’s walking in the opposite direction entirely of where he planned to go.

He’s headed for where they first met – that filthy alley where Eren asked for a smoke and Levi gave him a life lesson.

He’s almost there when he hears the gunshot.

.

The mouth of the alley looms like a behemoth and, as Levi sprints towards it, a gaggle of hooded figures bust from its entrance, hightailing it down the street where only the sparest of pedestrians are walking by, watching them fly away with baffled amusement.

Levi’s breath catches – sharp like daggers in his throat – and it doesn’t even occur to him to give chase, only turn down the alley plead to fucking God or whoever was in charge up there that this was a coincidence, that Eren was safely returning to the apartment with a coffee and a donut to win back Levi’s favour, sheepish smile on his lips and –

He skids around the corner and feels his blood runs cold.

Eren laughs from where he’s leaning against the building, a breathless whistle of a sound that visibly winds him as it comes out. His hands are pressed beneath the bridge of his ribs and his white shirt is going red.

“No,” Levi says and he doesn’t recognize his voice.

“We’ve been here before,” Eren ponders, “you and me. Do you remember, Levi?”

His heart is jack-rabbitting through his chest and every beat sends a wash of ice flooding through his veins. Levi feels like he’s drowning, like he’s skin-bare in artic winds.

“No,” he says again and he feels his knees give.

Eren watches him with fondness as the dirty filth of the street scrapes his trousers. Levi wants to feel annoyed – _these pants are expensive, going to have to wash them cold_ – but his tongue is thick in his mouth and he chokes on words that taste like acid.

“Don’t be like that,” Eren sighs, and from where Levi is staring listless and lost at the mouth of the alley he can see the too-red bleed of his mouth. Eren swipes his tongue along his lips and trails a smudge of blood against his skin. “Everything is okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Levi is not going to be okay. Levi is never going to be okay.

“I hate you,” he says. He thinks of long mornings dragging slowly into afternoons, of cold feet brushing like snow at his ankles and Eren’s laugh like a slow roll of warmth that sends nerves live-wiring beneath his skin. “Why did you – why did you have to fucking leave the apartment? Why couldn’t you have just stayed you _stupid_ , fucking waste of goddamn space. I should have shot you myself. I should have let you bleed out the first time we met.”

“So you do remember?” Eren says, and he sounds delighted. He smiles around a hitch in his breath and Levi can see the way his fingers tighten at his side. Red rolls down between his fingers and drips to splash on the pavement. “I didn’t think –” Eren pauses to shudder in a long roll of air and something too red to be saliva bubbles and burst at the corner of his mouth “– I didn’t think you remembered.”

“Of course I fucking remember,” Levi groans and he wants to move closer, wants to shuffle along the dirty ground until he’s near enough to run his shaking fingers through Eren’s hair and press him to his chest but he _can’t_. “How could I forget?”

Eren smiles again and Levi is so confused because Eren’s _dying_ – he’s bleeding out heaped against the trash cans of the Chinese place next door like a broken dog and he’s _smiling_. “You called me a fool. You said that kids like me die young.” He chuckles and then winces. For the first time he almost looks sad. “I guess I kind of am, huh? You’re pretty smart Levi.”

“Don’t,” He manages to choke out, and he can feel himself shaking.

Eren’s giggle in too high-pitched to be anything short of hysterical. “S’not so bad. Can barely feel it; actually, I feel _incredible_.”

“You have a bullet in your ribs.” Levi’s crying. Honest to God actual crying. He can’t remember the last time he did that. “You have a fucking bullet _in you_.”

“I know. Crazy, right?” Eren’s eyes slide shut and he grins.

Levi tries to get to his feet, manages to drag one leg upright and press a foot to the ground, but he’s shaking and his strength had left him like water rushing down a drain the moment he’d seen Eren sitting on rubbish and pavement-muck. He doesn’t so much step as fumble his way forward, hands sliding along greasy wall bricks for momentum, and when he drops down next to Eren he lands on his ass, one leg folded uselessly beneath him.

Eren cracks an eye open as Levi’s hands fist in his shirt.

“I hate you,” Levi repeats and he means it. “I hate your fucking guts.”

Eren’s fingers wrap loose around his wrists – Levi flinches, didn’t even notice when Eren lifted them from where they were pressed against his bleeding side – and the spread of fingers thin like bone against his skin are wet to touch.

“You’re crying,” he marvels, long lashes a curtain as he glances up at Levi with eyes too bright.

 _How observant_ , Levi wants to bite but he tastes something salty on his lips and he knows he won’t get the words out even if he tries. The breath he sucks in is noisy and loud and Levi buries his face in Eren’s shirt.

“Hey, hey, hey…” Eren croons, as his hands loosen from his wrists to curve around his shaking shoulders. He can feel Eren’s fingers stroking gently though his hair. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It doesn’t hurt – I won’t feel a thing. You’ll forget me quick, Levi, I promise.”

“I don’t want to forget you, you _stupid fucking brat_ ,” Levi gasps as one of his Eren’s arms slips around his shoulder. “I want you to go back in time and decide not to leave the fucking apartment. I want to get up and go home and see you sitting on that stupid couch. I want…” He can’t breathe. He _can’t_. “I want to go to Mikasa’s wedding with you. I want to meet your sister and I want – I want you to – _I want you to not be sitting here dying_.”

“Yeah,” Eren says and his fingers tighten in his hair. “Yeah. I want that, too.”

“ _Then why did you go when I said stay_?” Levi roars and feels the world around him tremble.

Eren doesn’t flinch. “Hey, Levi? I need you to do something for me, yeah?”

“I can’t – Eren, I can’t.”

“Sure you can. I just, I just need you to hold me. Just pretend like it’s you and me back home and we’ve got our whole day ahead of us yet. Hell, our whole lives.” Eren shudders against him and Levi knows without looking that he’s not the only one crying now. “Just… just hold me. _Please_.”

And Levi can’t say no when Eren asks him like that, but he wants to. He fucking wants to. He pulls back and he feels the slick slide of blood on his face as Eren’s shirt becomes redder and redder, soaking like it was fresh from the wash.

Eren smiles at him and it’s so familiar that Levi almost smiles back before he sees the little differences.

(eren’s teeth painted in chips of blood, the pink of his mouth and lips wet and red.)

He gathers him close in his arms, presses his thin shaking body into his chest and drags him so that Levi’s leaning against the wall and Eren’s a spill of bones and blood between his legs, ankles tangled together and Levi’s arms wrapped tight around his waist, fingers knotted together in Eren’s lap.

“Yeah,” Eren sighs and Levi can’t help but rock them both. “Yeah, like this.”

They’re silent and outside the street noises whistle past them, the sound of cars crunching on the road and the distant laughs and hums of people crossing the street outside. They’re invisible, wrapped in the shadows of filth and decay.

Levi could almost forget that this is it for them.

The air smells like stale piss and take-out.

Levi buries his face in the crook of Eren’s neck, inhaling deeply and he cries harder when he realizes with an electric start that Eren smells the same as always. Of messy morning sheets and quickies in the shower. Sex and soap and ten-dollar aftershave. Levi’s apartment when he arrives home in the evenings.

Home at all.

Eren sucks in a breath that rattles like fine-china and Levi tightens his arms.

“Oi, Eren. _Eren_. Not fucking yet, okay? Not yet.”

Eren laughs and Levi just knows he’s going to say something like _You don’t control everything_ or _Jesus, you’re not the boss of me_.

He doesn’t.

A second later he goes still in his arms.

Levi lifts his face towards the dark grime of the sky, oil slick spread of black and empty and he is exhausted. He doesn’t feel anything but the tears on his cheeks and the way Eren’s stiff fingers are curved around his own. He can’t stop rocking the two of them.

It’s silent now, and he can’t hear the faint roar of traffic, won’t until the night gives into morning and the early commuters shudder into life.

(he thinks about how he would be waking up just about then, with Eren’s arms wrapped low around his waist and smile soft against his skin as he mouthed good mornings against his throat.)

He thinks of getting up and leaving and going back to their apartment – he doesn’t know when it stopped being ‘his’ – but he can’t be bothered. The apartment is too far and Eren is so near, and he can’t just leave him because Eren always gets shitty when he wakes up alone.

Eren’s hair brushes soft along his cheek as he eases them back and forth.

Yeah. He’ll just stay here until morning.

He buries his face in Eren’s neck.

.

( _when morning comes, Levi eases Eren to the ground, brushing his hair back from his face – he was always telling him to get it cut – and folding his fingers against his chest. He gets to his feet, covered from head-to-toe in filth and blood and smelling of ten-dollar aftershave, and walks out to the sidewalk and strides with purpose towards the road where the other side of the street is about twelve feet away, he figures as he walks, and busy cars blast quick and many in between here and there._

_he doesn’t stop walking.)_

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have no clue if anybody at all is going to want to read something this depressing, but if you've read it and you've enjoyed it - even if it made you bawl, I know I cried writing the damn thing - then I'm just immensely happy.


End file.
